Every game has a story and as it develops, we hope to capture it.  On an early season senior night at Boca Raton which was the result of a scheduling anomaly, Pope John Paul II senior goalie Niko Morfogen had what must have been the game of his high school career.  His 14 saves, many of which were point blank after the Boca offense had worked its way past Pope’s defense, were clearly the difference in the game. You could tell early on this was the story and we focused (no pun intended) on it.  One of the things FLN likes to do is to include as many players as possible in our writing.  Most of our articles make sure we have the stats of all and when Lee writes one of his features, his details are impeccable (mostly).  Apologies to the many other fine players on both sides, but we are breaking our normal procedure and making this a Niko story. This game, which featured club, rec and travel teammates on both teams, had plenty of tension in the air, just like last year’s regular season win by Pope, 11-10, only to be followed by Boca turning the tables in the district semi, 11-7.   If they meet again this year in the districts, it is a must see game.  Pope started out with a quick 7-1 lead mid way through the second quarter and the final margin of 12-8 proved the rest of the game was a battle as the picture shows. It was only eleven years ago that the youth lacrosse programs in South Florida were started.  Every year since the quality of the game has grown dramatically and this Boca contest was the latest example.  We should stop and appreciate how far we have come in such a short period of time. Boca almost made it back, but Niko did not let it happen.  Here’s a photo tribute to one our best: